


Requisite Familial Ways

by cadewelentine



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, pre-Episode 70
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4443521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadewelentine/pseuds/cadewelentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil attends a picnic and his sister worries about him in the way that older sisters always do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requisite Familial Ways

**Author's Note:**

> So it's the middle of the night, but I found this saved on my computer, nearly completed, and decided that I should share it. I finished it up with one of my usual over dramatic endings, so enjoy that. 
> 
> This is technically a sequel to my earlier fic "Perpetual Trickle", but I'm not connecting them in a series because you don't have to have read one to enjoy the other, though I do think they compliment each other quite well. 
> 
> Enjoy, and as always, comments and constructive, polite criticism are always welcome. :D

_Janice, my young niece, Janice is here along with the rest of her family, whom I don’t like to talk about much, but whom I tolerate in all the requisite familial ways._

 ...

As long as one ignored the mysterious shape, Grove Park was a lovely place to have a picnic. At least, that’s what the Girl Scouts of Night Vale kept saying. Cecil didn’t mind it, but he felt the parking lot of the Arby’s- which was now just a 1:1 scale replica of the Arby’s, a change implemented during the Strex debacle- was nicer overall; the lights provided ambience. That being said, Grove Park was fine for a picnic, and Cecil was determined to make the best of it, for Janice’s sake.

His niece had invited him to the Girl Scouts’ annual picnic. Cecil had a fairly good idea that he’d been invited thanks to his older sister’s prodding, but he didn’t mind. This was a good excuse to get out of the house, to focus on something other than the mind crushing loneliness he felt at home.

Besides, spending time with Janice was one of his favorite pastimes.

However, Janice was all the way on the other side of the park, doing team building exercises with her troop. This left Cecil standing underneath the shade of a tree with his sister Abby and her husband Steve.

“Your hair looks nice, Abs.” Cecil offered, trying desperately to break the silence that was weighing on his mind. His sister’s hair did look nice, after all. It was intricately braided, with a french braid running down one side, eventually melting into a fishtail braid. He fondly remembered trying to do her hair as a child- one of the few childhood memories he still had.

“Thanks, Gersh.” She replied, using a shortened version of his middle name that made him cringe. “Janice did it.”

“She’s better at it than I ever was.” Cecil sighed wistfully.

“Speaking of being better-” Steve started, only to be cut off with an icy stare from his brother-in-law.

“Let him talk.” Abby warned, giving Cecil a look of her own.

Cecil sighed and rolled his eyes, but allowed Steve to speak anyway.

“I just wanted to know how you were doing,” Steve said. “You know, with the drinking thing.”

“Fine.” Cecil said curtly, his voice as sharp as the knives his desk at the studio was made of. Interns often asked why he had a desk made of knives. He didn’t have an answer; that was just how Ikea made them.

“Oh, well, that’s good.” Steve nodded. “I’m glad.”

“Great.” Cecil said, blowing air out his bottom lip, over the top one, as if he was trying to blow a stray piece of hair off his forehead, but there was no hair in his face to be blown.

He wondered, briefly, how long Carlos’ perfect hair had gotten, but then that pain in his chest got stronger, and he stopped. He hated that pain. It was a dull ache that was just strong enough that it couldn’t be ignored, no matter how much Cecil tried. It got stronger after a phone call with his beloved Carlos, and it got weaker with a few strong drinks, but it was always there, always right at his heart- or at least, where he believed his heart to be- one could never be quite certain of things like that.  

“I’m going to go get the blanket from the car.” Abby said, giving her husband a look with which Cecil was not familiar.

“Sounds good, Abby. We’ll stay here.” Steve said, and they shared a quick kiss that made Cecil cringe. He didn’t like to think of his sister doing anything romantic with the likes of Steve Carlsberg.

Steve barely waited until she had walked off to spring questions on Cecil.

“Things aren’t really fine, are they?” he asked.

“Didn’t I say they were fine?” Cecil countered.

“You say all sorts of things,” Steve replied. “I don’t expect you to actually believe all of them.”

“Well, I believe things are really fine.” Cecil snapped.

“Cecil, the lights and arrows-” Steve started.

“Don’t talk to me about your lies and fictions, Steve Carlsberg, because I don’t want to hear it.” Cecil hissed.

“But-” Steve tried, wanting so desperately to be helpful. He always wanted so desperately to be helpful. Cecil always pushed him away, no matter how much he needed help.

Sometimes it felt like Cecil would rather die than accept his help.

“Enough, Steve Carlsberg.” Cecil said, turning to watch Janice play cornhole with Megan Wallaby, their troop cheering them on. “I think Janice is winning.”

“I’m back.” Abby grinned, approaching the two with a purple quilt folded over her arm. Cecil recognized the blanket; their mother had painstakingly hand stitched each square of fabric together. She’d stayed up for three days straight, sewing non-stop, in order to finish the quilt before Abby left for college. He’d helped in the little ways he could, organizing the fabric squares into a pattern and handing them to his mother to sew.

“I’m glad.” Steve said, running a hand through thinning hair and giving her a slightly strained smile. He and Abby shared another look that Cecil didn’t quite recognize, but neither said anything else.

Abby spread the quilt out, pinwheels and calico covering the rubber turf the City Council had spread out over the entirety of the park as soon as everyone realized that there was no growing real grass in the dry desert earth. She sat on it, the skirt of her lavender sundress splaying out in a near-perfect circle. Steve settled in beside her, their hands intertwining in a way that made Cecil’s stomach turn.

“Come on, Gersh.” Abby prodded. “Have a seat.”

“In a minute.” Cecil told her. “I’m going to go get another soda.”

Abby watched her little brother stalk off in the direction of the drinks table, which was manned by a ten foot tall being named Erika, who no one acknowledged, as they were obviously not real.

“So, what did he say?” Abby demanded, her head turning to Steve so fast that her fishtail braid smacked him in the face.

“Nothing.” Steve sighed, rubbing his eye in an attempt to keep it from watering.

“Nothing?” Abby echoed incredulously.

“He won’t tell me anything.” Steve shrugged. “I don’t know why you’d think he’d tell me anything. He doesn’t like me!”

“He likes you.” Abby insisted.

“Do you even listen to the radio?” Steve asked. “Were you even at our wedding? He doesn’t like me, Abs.”

“Well, I just thought, that maybe that had changed,” Abby said quietly, rubbing her thumb in little circles over the back of Steve’s hand. “You know, since you went to his apartment.”

“It hasn’t.” Steve shook his head. “He still hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Abby said. “He saves hate for very specific things. And besides, he tolerates you, in all the requisite familial ways.”

“Gee, aren’t I lucky?” Steve scoffed.

“You are.” Abby said with all the sincerity she could manage. “You have me.”

Steve laughed, just a little too loudly, as was his way. He quickly stopped when he realized Abby wasn’t laughing with him.

“I’m serious.” She said. “You have me, which certainly makes you luckier than Cecil. He has no one.” She stared after her brother, sighing as she watched him pull a flask from his pocket and pour a shot into his Coke when he thought no one was watching, even though he knew as well as anyone that someone was always watching.

“He’s a mess, Steve.” Abby sighed, leaning against her husband’s shoulders.

“He’s coming back.” Steve said. And he was, walking right in their direction as he downed his Coke in one quick gulp.

“What’re you two talking about?” Cecil asked, lowering himself to the ground beside his sister.

“Nothing,” Abby lied. “Just Janice.”

Cecil narrowed his eyes, as if he were trying to catch her in her lie by reading the words more closely. After a moment, he relaxed, shrugging and letting his hands fall into his lap.

The three adults were quiet, and it made for a sort of truce. The kind of truce that was formed in the requisite familial way; that is to say, that it was formed because no one said anything to the contrary.

And no one would.


End file.
